Authors:
Brinkman SA, Gregory T, Harris J, Hart B, Blackmore S, Janus M
Authors notes:
Child Indicators Research. 2013;online:1-14
Keywords:
Australian Early Development Index, EDI, NAPLAN, Child development, Literacy, Numeracy
Abstract:
The Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) is collected at age 5 as a developmental census once every 3 years across the entire country.
The AEDI is the Australian adaptation of the Canadian Early Development Instrument (EDI).
The objective of this paper is to determine how well the EDI predicts a child's later literacy and numeracy outcomes as assessed by the National Assessment Program Literacy And Numeracy (NAPLAN) standardised testing in primary school in Australia.
This is the first paper to investigate the relationship between the EDI and the national standard school assessments in Australia.
The implications are two fold; firstly the results provide confidence in Australia's use of the AEDI as a national progress measure of human capability formation and secondly it reinforces the importance of having all children entering school with the skills and developmental capacity to take advantage of schooling.